Zadzooks: ‘Far Cry 5’ review (PS4)

Gamers looking for a guerilla-style fight to reclaim part of America can battle within a realistically crafted and massive landscape in the first-person shooter Far Cry 5: Deluxe Edition (Ubisoft Montreal, rated Mature, reviewed on PlayStation 4, $69.99).

The latest adventure to the popular, free-roaming, open-world franchise takes on a potentially politically charged storyline with its dunderheaded snipes at the rural Christian West but always delivers plenty of cinematic action.

Specifically, instead of fighting brutal pirates or depots in exotic locales in previous games, a player assumes the role of either a male or female sheriff’s deputy nicknamed the “rookie” and must stop the doomsday survivalist preacher, and Project at Eden’s Gate cult leader, Joseph “The Father” Seed, and his minions.

The leader controls a wide swath of Montana in fictional Hope County with help from his army of followers and sibling heralds — the trippy, Bliss drug-pushing Faith Seed, former Army marksman Jacob Seed and conversion specialist John “The Baptist” Seed.

Each herald manages a region that the rookie must explore and infiltrate to build a resistance with the local townsfolk. It often leads to firefights and chaos breaking out with citizen versus citizen right in the middle of the U.S.

The player uses familiar methods to restore order to the area, including freeing captured citizens; liberating outposts from the cult; and causing as much mayhem and destruction against Eden’s Gate as possible (from blowing up fuels tankers to destroying silos and shrines to killing the bad guys in bulk).

The game never stops challenging the strategic imagination of the player as he looks for ways to succeed in aggressive wilderness regions and around nearly nonstop hostile road encounters filled with danger and surprises.

Thankfully, the rookie has plenty of help along the way.

For example, the rookie has access to firearms and weapons that are scavenged from dead enemies, freely given by citizens, or bought and upgraded in shops (ranging from a shotgun, pistol, flamethrower, shovels with smiley faces and a weaponized semi rig called the Widowmaker).

In addition to gaining those weapons, a player can eventually recruit two resistance members to his team to help during missions.

He can rescue locals ready to bend an ear and they take up arms, or nine warriors are eventually available with a wide range of skills include sniper Grace Armstrong, chopper pilot Adelaide Drubman and RPG lover Hurk Drubman Jr.

Now, considering the vast and sometimes random nature of the game, it’s worth noting some encounters and moments of fun, as I hit the 15-hour mark, that may help players appreciate the game.

• If you cause trouble, expect lots of trouble. As the rookie attacks, he becomes a marked human, and Eden’s Gate will hunt him looking for revenge. Make sure you collect enough points and enough warriors to unlock the Leadership perk so that two companions are always with you.

• Did I really just get gassed by a skunk? “Far Cry 5’s” aggressive critters are as harmful and as helpful as ever. Within minutes of playing the game, I walked into a rattlesnake that bit me, making me woozy, and then a ravenous cougar finished me off.

The good news is some of the critters are also ready to join the fight.  A player can eventually unlock and recruit a weapon-sniffing dog named Boomer, a mountain lion named Peaches and a ferocious bear nicknamed Cheeseburger.

• Stop and smell the pumpkins. “Far Cry 5” exists in a sprawling and active world with waterfalls, streams, mountains, cliffs, lush fields, farms and pumpkin patches and offers plenty of opportunities to fish and hunt (collect the creatures skins for cash).

Most enjoyable, for its odd beauty, is the area controlled by Faith Seed. Polluted with the drug Bliss, it’s a minefield filled with hallucination-inducing plants, water covered with green fog and drug-addled zombies on the prowl. When entering the Hebane River region, it almost feels like a different game.

• Quit walking and travel in style. Who can’t appreciate controlling a seaplane or helicopter, commandeering a beat-up muscle car, stealing a gas tanker, navigating a speedboat or climbing a radio tower and jumping off using a wingsuit to glide like a bat. In general, vehicles are available in abundance, and most have a tunable radio with plenty of rock songs.

And, as far as the variety of main and secondary missions, easily over 100, the Big Sky seemingly has no limits. Here’s just a trio of scenarios that really offered a swatch of the game’s violent reality tied to unusual situations.

• I got a tip from a new friend at the Spread Eagle bar that I could help a veteran in need. I borrowed an ATV and drove on back roads to get near his dwelling but before I reached his him, I got sidetracked to help an eccentric guy named Larry stuck in an electrified pen.

Further sidetracked, I first went to destroy an Eden’s Gate-branded Silo right near me and was attacked by a gunfire from a helicopter. I took down the helicopter with my sniper rifle, blew up the silo and went to Larry in the back of his trailer.

I had to find and shut down three generators to help him, but I also found a safe while rummaging in his house. I used dynamite to blow up the safe (recommended due to the lack of a lock pick) and accidentally set his house on fire. OK, I also freed Larry from his jolting captivity. However, as I left, with trailer ablaze, a truck pulled up and I had to kill three members of the cult using shovels to impale them. I never did help the veteran.

• The game offers some puzzling challenges tied to unlocking prepper stashes that contain a wealth of ammo, supplies and money. Just one of these sub missions found me climbing on a roof of a locked shack attached high in the air over the edge of a shallow river.

I was met with sniper fire immediately and had to use a zipline near the roof to get across the river, had to handle a cougar looking to have me for lunch, and then I had to kill the enemy standing on a hunting platform.

I took his rifle, carefully aimed and shot off a lock exposed from my view of the shack from the other side of the river. I immediately jumped on a Jet Ski, got back to the other side of the river, and climbed back up to a bridge to get to the door of the now-opened shack. I found plenty of cash and garnered the attention of a small army of Eden’s Gate minions.

As each tried to enter the shack, I beat them to death with an aluminum bat and looted them for more goodies. Once they gave up, I counted at least eight bodies in a pile on the floor, I opened the door to leave and had to snipe a guy wielding a rocket-propelled grenade aimed at me. I then quickly disappeared into the brush as more bad guys arrived.

• I spent plenty of time recruiting powerful friends, no matter how weird they were. Case in point, I kind of stumbled upon the pyromaniac Shark Boshaw while driving by the Moonflower Trailer Park.

With music blasting, the guy wielded a flamethrower and got his kicks torching the Faith druggie Angels constantly attacking his camp. He asked me to join him in the fiery rampage. He then got bored and asked that I shut down four speakers blaring music to attract the horde.

While attempting to turn off the power, the zombies kept coming. At first, I was helped by a machine-gun-wielding local, but the overzealous Sharky kept toasting her. I then called in my buddy Nick Rye, a pilot with a seaplane, and he dropped targeted bombs as well as strafed with machine gunfire the insane enemies.

Suffice it to report, the unscripted reality of the game continues to be its eye-opening strength.

In fact, some of the other players I passed the controller to thought the game was too realistic, which I translated to mean that the subject matter was a bit too unsettling.

It’s one thing to pummel to death a crazed pirate or a gooey monster but another to decapitate a brainwashed rural American with a shovel, or shoot him the gut with an arrow and watch him crying out in pain while he bleeds out.

It’s worth noting that another player can co-operatively join the mayhem throughout, greatly increasing the fun levels of the chaos of the adventure.

And, for those really obsessed, a Far Cry Arcade option allows player to create their own maps using much of elements in the game and share them to gamers around the world.

Although some may find “Far Cry 5” a bit too derivative of its predecessors and its gun-loving, rural-America stereotyping a bit too offensive, the game will ignite new levels of addiction with over 40-hours of often fast-paced, oddly humorous and explosive action.

Note: For an extra $10, the deluxe version of the game includes a collection of downloadable goodies such as the Big Game Hunter compound bow and ATV, the Ace Pilot 1911 handgun and helicopter, and an AR-C Assault Rifle and .44 Magnum Handgun with customized skins to help make the rookie’s life a bit more stylish and easier.